Friday, April 27, 2007

Inescapable God

"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

Psalm 139:7-12

Throughout history, people who came to disbelieve in gods or spirits they had once venerated have literally torn down their idols... defaced the "images of the gods"... cut themselves loose from the relics of the past.

Today, many people in our postmodern world would like to escape the God of the Bible.

But how can we?

We could perhaps burn all of the Bibles in the world, remove every trace of Scriptural influence from Western speech and thought, and rewrite history.

But then there would be relationships. Father and son. Husband and wife. These things which so eloquently speak of Him. Still, this too we could destroy. We could blur gender lines. We could cheapen marriage. We could turn parents and children against each other.

We would walk outside, free of God in our homes, and be confronted with seas and stars and trees and wind and glorious nature.

Easy enough to deal with. We can level it. Poison it. Pollute it.

But then, having killed our life source to get away from its Creator, we might accidentally look in a mirror. And behind the guilty, sin-marred expression that looks back at us, there is a soul. An eternal spirit. A spark of imagination; the power of reason; the power to create or destroy.

We are the greatest evidence of God. No matter how we unravel ourselves, we can't be rid of Him.